During individual warmups about an hour and a half before the game, a photographer from The Charlotte Observer captured Newton approaching Benjamin as he spoke with former teammate and current Panthers linebacker Thomas Davis. Newton apparently wanted to discuss. Benjamin didn't appear to want to have much of a conversation. "I get it. I know what that's like, but you'd like to see him kind of move forward to his new team and embrace his new opportunity, rather than kind of go personal on it".

It was a fortuitous matchup in the preseason opener after the wideout in the same interview this week called the Panthers, his former team, "a bad fit from the get-go". Looking back on it, I should've just been drafted by somebody else. Benjamin answered questions about the exchange by saying he was "moving on", although when asked what Newton said to him, Benjamin responded, "I don't know. It just felt like I wasn't in that position". Benjamin has grown cold in Buffalo.